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The celeb restaurateur cooked up a condo as stunning as his eateries

Celebrity restaurateur Michael Schulson invites Closer to his Philadelphia condo.

When chef Michael Schulson wanted to break into the restaurant business 25 years ago, the native New Yorker went to the City of Brotherly Love — Philadelphia — where he launched a dining empire and now is creating the ideal condo for his family. “My wife and I are always designing these restaurants so that other people can have a fun, sexy, intimate place to enjoy themselves,” Michael, 44 — who often does cooking segments on Today, The View and other shows — shares with Closer. “We thought, let’s do something for ourselves now!”

Just don’t expect to find the “dark, cool, hip” decor of their eight U.S. restaurants in the five-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath condo they’re still busy building.

“When people come into our home, they think that’s what they’re gonna get — and it’s completely different than our restaurants,” he says.

Instead, the Schulson Collective founder and his wife, company COO Nina Tinari Schulson, 37, are creating a “very clean, bright and airy traditional place with a rustic feel” for themselves and sons Davin, 11, and Jordan, 7.

“This was all raw space, so it’s been a long journey,” Michael says of their condo, which they’ve lived in for just over a year and are now reconfiguring from 3,700 to 4,700 square feet (including a home gym). The foursome were living in a small two-bedroom in the same building when they found it, and it’s taken them about two years to build what they have so far.

Why start a place from scratch? “Because

I’m a masochist!” Michael says with a laugh.

All kidding aside, it’s allowed them to create the ideal family home in the confines of a city apartment, anchored by a living room that flows off of the kitchen and dining room.

“I wanted to have an inviting, open space where we can entertain,” he explains, “and break it up so the kids can do their own thing in their

wing and we have another wing to do ours.”

When choosing their decor, Nina and Michael looked for “a lot of white” pieces. “We found furniture that’s 50, 60, 70 years old, including white leather chairs,” he says. And they took advantage of relationships with contractors who’ve created their restaurants. “We had them build a lot of stuff, like bar stools reproduced from an image we saw. We picked out a navy blue fabric, because that’s a big color of ours.”

As one might expect from a chef who starred on TLC’s Ultimate Cake Off, “the kitchen was a number-one priority,” he says. “I [studied] architectural engineering , and I’ll always remember that the refrigerator, sink and stove should be in a triangle. That allows you to be productive.”

With such a versatile space for the city, does Michael think of it more as a loft (thanks to its 15-foot ceilings), a condo or an apartment? “It’s funny you should ask, because the boys always say, ‘You should come check out our apartment!’ And my wife is very clear in her answer to that question. This isn’t our apartment, this is our home.” — Reporting by Ilyssa Panitz

“We came from a 1,200-squarefoot place, and now the boys have a play area! They’ve become much more relaxed.” — Michael (with Davin, Jordan & Nina)

“We don’t let the kids watch TV or play electronics during the week, so we interact with games like Scrabble,” he says. “My wife came up with the chandelier idea in the master bedroom, which I loved,” Michael says — but not as much as he loves his...

“The bar is a focal point. When people see it, they feel at home and make themselves a drink.” The dining room boasts French oak floors and “a Parisian street lamp from the 1930s.”

Michael’s appeared on Ultimate Cake Off and has recently shown his skills on Today with Willie Geist (above).

He put a stovetop in the middle of his Carrara marble countertop island because “everyone wants to see a chef cook.”